


Messiah Song

by kairyu



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: 2x06 Spoilers, Angst, Colour Symbolism, Gen, Kinda, Mandalorian Culture (Star Wars), Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-15
Updated: 2020-12-15
Packaged: 2021-03-11 04:40:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28079331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kairyu/pseuds/kairyu
Summary: Din looked down at himself. Silver beskar, unblemished and pure. A tireless search for vindication.
Relationships: Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV) & Din Djarin, Din Djarin & Boba Fett
Comments: 16
Kudos: 228





	Messiah Song

**Author's Note:**

> like everyone else i went nuts @ boba's swanky new paint job and felt the need to write about mandalorian armour colours, because i'm sad that there wasn't really any mention of it in the show and i think it deserves Something
> 
> mando'a translations are at the bottom.

“Have you ever thought about painting yours?” Fett asked, somewhere between Nevarro and the Karthon Chop Fields, stopping Din’s pacing just long enough for him to give him an appraising once-over. Fett looked… _good,_ in the beskar’gam, restored to a former glory Din hadn’t known of but had mourned anyway, back when he’d first taken it off Vanth.

It fit Fett better, too. Vanth had looked rather like a child playing dress-up when he’d donned it, slender body too wiry, too small, to fill out the bulk of it—but it also hadn’t been _his._ He’d been wearing another man’s skin like it was his own, heedless of the fact that it hung off him all wrong. Seeing it polished and painted and back where it belonged—

It felt _right,_ like Din had served some greater purpose by retrieving it and protecting it and returning it to its true owner. Fett looked as at ease in the beskar’gam as Din was in his, like he was meant to be in it, like he was Mando’ad. (Because he _was_ Mando’ad, just as much as Din was, even when he hadn’t had his beskar’gam, even when he still, now, chose to remove his buy’ce from time to time, as though it didn’t feel welded to his skin out in public the way Din’s did.

That didn’t make him any _less,_ Din understood. They both perceived their obligations differently, but _different_ was not always synonymous with _wrong_. He hadn’t commented on it in the same way he had when Bo-Katan had dropped in from the sky, speaking of duty and then changing the terms of their deal as though dishonesty was anything reminiscent of what it meant to _be_ Mando’ad, and Fett… Fett hadn’t commented on _him,_ either, hadn’t considered him inherently _inferior,_ or called his tribe a _cult._ )

There was a mutual connection forged not in the fires of companionship and time, but in the cores of their identities. Fett seemed almost reluctant to call _himself_ Mando’ad, but he _came_ from it, from a man just like Din, and he wore that armour with a pride and possession that no aruetii could ever hope to attain.

As far as Din was concerned, that was enough reason to put enough faith in Fett’s word.

Fett made a noise in the back of his throat, something between a grunt and a huff, and said, “Beroya,” and though Din had already rationalised Fett being just like him, the casual use of Mando’a was enough to give him pause.

He blinked, turning his head to look at Fett, and realised he hadn’t answered his question—hadn’t given any indication that he’d been paying attention at all, save for the half-second glance in his direction. “Your armour,” Fett continued. “Have you ever thought about painting it?”

Din lingered on Fett’s colours, for a while. There was green, for duty, which—Fett seemed a man of honour in a galaxy where such men were rarer than anything, and it made sense, then, that his primary trait should be something so noble; there were the somber notes of red, for honouring a parent Fett had spoken of using the dreaded _was;_ and he couldn't quite tell if Fett's pauldrons were a shereshoy orange, thrill-seeking and strangely optimistic—

Or a vengeful gold.

He didn’t know Fett _too_ well—their relationship was one that teetered on the edge of familiarity, and Din still clung, persistently, to formality, to distance, to referring to the other using only his family name—but from what he had gathered, both would make sense. For peace of mind, he could only hope it was the former.

And Din was clad in silver, unmarked by any vibrant hues, chrome polished enough that he could see his warped reflection in his pauldron when he turned his head.

“... It’s the right colour now,” he muttered. Thought about the _trust_ in Grogu’s little face as he’d been taken away by those strange, dark-clad _things,_ as though he’d been so certain that Din would come after him, would _save_ him, that there’d been no room for fear or doubt—

It was his _mission_ to protect the kid, to get him to his own kind, and he hadn’t even—he hadn’t even been able to stop a handful of _droids_ from—from _taking_ him. He was burning through the Resol’nare like a pariah with a vengeance, with something to prove. No kid, no tribe, no leads on either.

Fett was quiet, for a time, impassive and unreadable beneath his buy’ce. Then: “What happened on Tython wasn’t your fault,” he said, and Din made a quiet, wounded sound, broken and too-vulnerable.

Because it _was_ his fault, really. He’d left the kid up on that stone even though he’d been so close to finishing with his Jedi search, and he’d gotten sidetracked with Fett and Shand and the Stormtroopers, and he’d _fucked up._ He should’ve known that—that the kid would never be safe on his own, that leaving him out in the open was a death sentence, and he’d still walked away.

“If I had waited just a few more seconds for the kid—for _Grogu_ — to be done with his—” he gestured vaguely with one hand, throat tight and aching— _“powers_ instead of just running _off,_ then I could’ve—he’d still—”

He exhaled, shaky and uncertain. “My actions forced my tribe’s hand, and it doomed them,” he said, voice sounding hollow and faraway even to his own ears. Fett, blessedly, did not ask for elaboration, even though Din knew, realistically, that he couldn’t possibly have known what he was talking about. “My actions left the k—Grogu open to attack, and it doomed _him.”_

“Not doomed,” Fett countered. “Not yet. Your kid could still be fine.”

And Din hoped— _needed_ —Fett to be right, but it had been almost two days, now, and Gideon—Gideon had had a _purpose,_ when he’d come looking for them. Like he’d known, even before he’d gotten his hands on Grogu, what he’d planned to do with him. The first client had seemed apathetic to whether Grogu would survive whatever _he’d_ wanted with him (and part of Din wondered if it was the exact same thing, if their goals were equally nefarious), and Gideon somehow seemed worse, seemed even more single-minded.

He resumed his pacing— _“Like a caged nexu,”_ Fett had remarked, earlier—and dragged his gloved palms down the sides of his buy’ce. “I still failed him,” he insisted. “You didn’t see his _face,_ Fett. He looked like—he looked like he was expecting me to pull some _manoeuvre_ and _rescue_ him before they even got him back to Gideon’s ship, and I just—I just let him _go.”_

He could not say why he felt the need to empty his chest, break the dam of his gritted teeth and drown Fett in his misery, but to his credit, Fett took it well. He didn’t dismiss it, or diminish it, or sharpen all that pain into a weapon and drive it between Din’s ribs—he just nodded, once, like he got it. Like he _understood._

“And now,” he said, simple as anything, “we get to make it right.”

 _We,_ not _you,_ and Din wished he could make sense of the way that swelled in the hollows of his ribs, a bright, blazing light that blinked away the pain for one, blessed heartbeat; Fett and Shand and Cara were willing to help him, to go to the ends of the galaxy to get Grogu back, risk it all for a shot at reunion, and two of them didn’t even _know_ the kid.

But it didn’t surprise him in the slightest, because Fett had been so accommodating already. He’d let Din onto the _Slave I_ like it was nothing, let him touch and explore and move around as though he belonged there, as though he’d always belonged there.

He was holding up his end of their bargain. He was Mando’ad.

Din found his thoughts returning, once more, to Fett’s armour. But not to the righteous green that dominated it—to the red, and the _was,_ again, and the fact that Fett’s armour was inherited, passed down from a man that no longer needed it. (That could no longer use it. _Nu kyr'adyc, shi taab'echaaj'la._ Not gone—merely marching far away.)

Fett’s father had been a foundling, Din recalled him saying when they’d first met, taken too soon from his young son. _Din_ had been a foundling, once, and Grogu—

“Mayfeld will help us,” Din heard himself saying. “He has to. We’ll get the co-ords, and we’ll track Gideon down—”

“And we’ll get your boy back,” Fett concluded, and it sounded like a vow, impossible to argue with even though the odds seemed stacked so highly against them. “And I’ll have your back until we do, and once it’s all over, maybe we can think about your colours. Blue, maybe. And…” he tilted his head, considering, while warmth flashed low through Din’s gut at the _idea_ of blue. He didn’t think it fit, but maybe—maybe someday, once he got the kid back. Maybe it would suit him then.

“And white,” Fett said. “White would be nice.”

Din looked down at himself. Silver beskar, unblemished and pure. A tireless search for vindication. After all that, the thought of wiping his slate clean, of starting anew—

“Yeah,” he murmured hoarsely, clenching and unclenching his fists. “Yeah, it would be.”

**Author's Note:**

>  **translations:** _beskar’gam_ \- armour  
>  _mando’ad_ \- mandalorian  
>  _aruetii_ \- outsider; someone who isn’t mandalorian (could also be 'traitor', just not in this context)  
>  _beroya_ \- bounty hunter  
>  _mando'a_ \- mandalorian (language)  
>  _buy’ce_ \- helmet  
> 


End file.
